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The price of failure: pay raises and promises

The Lowell Sun

Updated:
08/04/2014 11:21:15 AM EDT

Politicians on the campaign stump and those in office often say government should be run more like a business to build efficiency, productivity and accountability. Yet things rarely, if ever, seem to change.

The latest example of government's Mouseketeers Club mentality comes at the shaky Massachusetts Health Connector.

Recently, MHC executive director Jean Yang doled out raises of $10,000 or more to 11 of the agency's 53 workers. The increases ranged from 15 percent to 24 percent, with another 3 percent on the way in the fiscal 2015 budget IF the agency meets goals to successfully relaunch its balky website by November.

Yang said the salary increases are needed to retain valued employees and improve performance going forward. This action comes after the embarrassing debacle associated with the state's rollout of its Obamacare website, which has cost taypayers nearly $1 million in computer fixes and lawsuits and still isn't resolved.

Yang is also planning to hire eight more workers, increasing the staff to 61.

The last time we saw Yang she was tearfully testifying on Beacon Hill about the website's failures. The strain on her staff, and the demoralizing effects it had on them, were articulated quite extensively.

So who was to blame? The fact that Yang and her staff failed to test the Obamacare integration with the Connector website says it all.

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Staffers went through a lot of unnecessary pain for their lack of preparedness -- but not nearly as much as the thousands of individuals driven to anxiety when they lost coverage under the old rules and were unable to sign on to new programs.

This is what's wrong with government: Taxpayers must make up for leadership's mistakes.

By right, Yang's employees should not be bought off with huge raises to remain in their jobs. They were part of a failed launch. And while not totally to blame, they must accept responsibility and move on with a lesson learned. Citizens will accept that, and forgive and forget.

But to reward staffers because of poor morale -- at taxpayers' expense -- based on a promise of improvement is a sign that failed management is acceptable. It is an insult to citizens.

And it's another reason why government should be run more like a business instead of a club.

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